The invention relates to easels for supporting painting canvases, and more particularly to an easel structure and method that enables a painter to easily move a very large painting canvas both horizontally and vertically to position a particular portion thereof directly in front of him.
Quite a variety of easels for supporting painting canvases in front of artists are known in the art. The state-of-the-art is generally indicated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 679,529, 2,059,525, 3,416,764, 3,809,354, 3,926,398, 4,109,892, 4,134,614, 4,145,021, 4,165,856, 4,568,052 and French Patent dated Oct. 20, 1840.
Various degrees of adjustability are provided in the easels disclosed in the above-indicated references. For example, the easel disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,109,892 can easily accommodate and securely clamp different size painting canvases, and is adjustable toward or away from the artist. Patents 4,134,614 and 4,165,856 disclose easels with rotatable mobility about a base. U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,614 discloses adjustable utility shelves. U.S. Pat. No. 4,568,052 discloses an adjustable bracket similar to those used to support drafting lamps; this device, however, would be very unsuitable for supporting large painting canvases, as it would not provide the necessary rigidity to resist being jarred when the canvas is touched, for example, by an artist's painting knife.
None of the above-described easels are suitable for supporting very large painting canvases, such as canvases measuring four or five feet on a side. When such a large painting is desired, the artist must move sideways and reach high or low to conveniently paint various sections of the large canvas. If he wishes to raise or lower the picture to enable him to conveniently reach the higher or lower portions of the canvas, he must remove the canvas from the prior easels, loosen slidable clamps, readjust them, and reposition the painting canvas on the picture support members. It would be very convenient if the painter did not have to go through such effort, and instead could easily position any particular area of a large canvas in front of him.